Inferno
by Blodwenn
Summary: In the years after the Second Wizarding War, Harry is less Golden Boy and more Hardened Auror. When a series of grotesque murders happen in London it seems the only person who can help prevent these murders is the incarcerated Draco Malfoy. H/D slash, AU.
1. Prologue: Among the People Lost

**AN:** This prologue is from the point of view of Narcissa Malfoy, the following chapters will be from point of view of Harry. Unfortunately, our darling Draco shall not be making an appearance until later chapters.

Also, I am currently looking for Beta Readers. You can contact me through , on AIM under **requiemoftable**, if you are interested.

Finally, I own nothing of the Harry Potter universe, the rights belong to J.K Rowling, Bloomsbury, Schoolastic and any other entities involved. Likewise, the titles as well as several quotes from later chapters belong to Dante's Divine Comedy, particularly the first section, Inferno.

**Prologue: Among the People Lost**

It has been six months since my son's, Draco Malfoy, incarceration into Azkaban; six long months in which I have had to force myself to live without that which I have desired, protected, needed and possessed for almost twenty two years. They have not only wrenched a person from my life, they have poisoned memories and turned the purpose of my life prior spent to ashes. I am allowed no contact, no owls, _nothing_. It was as if my favorite toy has been twisted from me after all I had done to preserve and save and love it.

It has been four months since the Dementors were reinstated as the guards for the worst of the war criminals. My son, who the ministry had been unable to prove guilty of using the killing curse, is still confined under new laws for twenty five years for the use of lesser Unforgivables; he is in where beasts tread. I can daily feel my grip on his soul slipping the more he lay with the gruesome creatures.

It has been two months since my husband was subjected to the Dementor's Kiss, despite the fact he had not fought alongside the Dark Lord, he was unable to be saved. No amount of money would redeem his soul; no amount of grief that I could feel could inspire enough pity to allow the monster that society saw to live among them. They say you do not die when they give you the Kiss, but he is as good as dead to me. I will not mourn twice for my husband. I will not mourn the passing of his soul, and then the passing of his body. I will only shed the precious and rare tears of a Black once and only once.

I am slowly going mad. I am alone within the Manor, and it assaults my senses every waking moment of every day that passes. I may have been acquitted from my crimes against the Ministry, but in the freedom they had so "willingly" given, they have condemned me to a different kind of prison. Still, day in and day out I hold my head high in defiance regardless of there being an audience or no. Neither Black nor Malfoy shows weakness to themselves or to others.

Moving like a wraith through my own home, I smile bitterly as I do every morning at the portrait of my husband. He looks eons away from me in the portrait. He looks years younger too, his face in the confident smirk which was accustomed among friends and family. That smile used to belong to me. There was once a time where I possessed Lucius wholly: his body, his mind, his heart and his soul had been mine. I had ensured that my essence would poison every inch of that man, addicting him to my presence.

In the deepest shadows of my mind, I will admit that even though my inherited fanaticism from the Black line insists that I would have dominated whoever I had taken as a lover completely, it could not keep me from, somewhere along our dance of equal deception, falling as much in love as he.

I watch the Lucius in the painting watching me with fondness, and I can remember the day it was painted. Easily over a decade ago, I thought the Dark Lord was gone from our lives forever. My husband, I thought, was slowly becoming mine again, our relationship slowly becoming summer after a long winter. I never got to feel that summer sun, not truly.

His absence now is as damaging as his first betrayal of me. Between me and the self proclaimed "Dark Lord" there could have been no absolute loyalty to either side. He had submitted himself to Voldemort, and so I had lost a tiny bit of my hold on my husband, something I had clawed and scratched and demanded back with force and was met with equal force, pushing him deeper into the folds of the Death Eaters. When I had finally retained it, after long trials of blood and fire, it was the Ministry and the Dementors which had once again stolen it from my very fingers.

With Draco rotting in Azkaban, I am feeling the same defeat over. Where I had dominated my son so completely—saved his life, _owned_ his life—it was waning. Still, there was hope. My son is not gone entirely, and I will twist my threads of control once more into his heart if it kills me.

Ghosting through the hallways, I stop at my husband's personal study. It seems too empty without Lucius' presence within the room. Many times I can remember sitting in the chesterfield across from his desk in comfortable silence as I asserted my presence in his life and imprinting his into my own. My fingers are like wires against the heavy oak door. Shouldering myself inside, my wand draws ink and quill and parchment to me.

I will do the only thing that can provide me with comfort these days, I occupy my mind with things other than the empty house, my solitary state, and the fact my influence is dying in my son—the fact that _I_ am dying in my son —as the days labour on.

And so, I began to write.


	2. Deep And Savage Way

**Chapter One: Deep and Savage Way**

There is a red envelop on my desk. I know that if I open it, there will be hell. I know that if I don't open it, it will be worse. I choose the lesser of two evils, and I open it as smoke begins to pour from underneath the flap. A scream resonates throughout the room. I've been around anguish long enough to know that it is not real. Or, at least, it is not truly felt by the woman who sent the Howler. Another opinionated witch, another person who has been impregnated by the renewed spite Rita Skeeter seems to hold for me these days.

I grimace at the makeshift mouth of the Howler. I know they can be destroyed. I know that there is no need for me to listen. But I do. I listen to the voice retch of inequalities and unfairness. The Howler preaches them, seething with anger as if I have never known unfairness in my life. I can't help but snort at the insinuation.

I'm Harry Potter; my entire fucking life has been unfair.

"_What right do you have to use such inhumane treatment? What possesses you to use such cruelties? Silver on a werewolf is the equivalent to a Cruciatus! Possibly even an Avada Kedavra! And yet, there is no reprimand! No punishment for the torture! The one who is supposed to be protecting us is using harmful, twisted, barbaric methods and he walks free!"_ The Howler keeps going. I stop listening. I've heard it all before.

There is no warmth behind my smile; I don't even know why I'm smiling. But I can feel it: the acrid, sharp tug of my lips curling crookedly across my face as the memory flits to the most forward part of my mind. I know the incident the Howler is shrieking about. It's my most recent incident in a long line of public degradations.

It was almost four days ago. I remember being called out as a last resort. Kingsley has been more and more hesitant to use me this past year. He knows with my publicity comes stories that are not always appreciated when subtleties are required. It's even worse to have the media in where it cannot gauge the difference between what they think should happen and what actually happens. Sure, in a perfect world, we would all like for the good to triumph over the evil and the evil to get punished. But it doesn't work like that. I used to believe it did. I used to believe everything was cookie-cutter black and white. Now all I see is shades of grey. I know that the saints who run our government and charities cheat on their taxes and their spouses just as much as the sinners we condemn are human: they love and hurt and regret. Those sinners, they act out of what they believe is necessity. They don't feel evil as evil, but as a duty or as a last hope. The media doesn't see that, they don't see that good people sometimes have to do bad things, and that bad people can still do good. It's just not the way the mind of the media works.

Kingsley always tries to recruit as many Aurors as possible when there are reports near muggle communities; he says it's a safety precaution. The alarm that night had been for a werewolf, Fenrir Greyback, to be exact. Kingsley isn't a stupid man; he knows that Greyback and I have history. He knows I would not falter if confronted, nor would I hold back just because the wizard fashion craze of the month is to join an organization which is the equivalent of P.E.T.A for werewolves.

When I got to the scene, just a few miles outside of Yorkshire, it looked like some sort of macabre bowling alley. Aurors were scattered like pins after being struck with the ball. Reinforcements apparate in behind me and immediately I begin barking orders. In the heat of conflict and stress, this is where I am at home. I make sure that the fallen Aurors are taken care of, if any of them have injuries that they are immediately taken to St Mungos. Those that are able to continue do so under my leadership. It seems that even the best of Aurors are ready to fall under the command of the Chosen One; I think it just stops them from feeling the pressure and the pandemonium of the situation as their own.

I separated us into groups and to our dismay found it wasn't just Greyback, it was an entire pack of fledgling werewolves. Without the Aurors we had lost, we were at a disadvantage for numbers. We tried being subtle. It didn't work. It wasn't long before the fields surrounding Yorkshire were bathed in the sounds of screams and with blood. I'm not sure if it was more Auror or werewolf, but in the end, blood is blood.

I caught sight of Greyback leaving his pack, I probably shouldn't have left the Aurors, not when we were under attack, but I did. I don't regret my decision. I found him about to attack muggle children camping in their backyard. Without a hint of hesitation I casted a body bind. To ensure that he didn't slip once more through the fingers of the Aurors, I conjured an Iron Maiden to keep him locked in as I returned to the rest of the Aurors to help fend off the other werewolves.

A _silver _Iron Maiden.

When we got back to the ministry, Greyback's face and most of his scars had been burned off his body. I think about what he was about to do to those children; what he did to Bill Weasley; what that monster did to Remus. I can't even summon guilt for my actions.

Nothing.

The Howler finally seems to exhaust itself and it explodes. I must have stared at the embers for longer than I thought, entrenched by the red fade into black as the cinders died slowly. I didn't even hear the footsteps approach my office.

"Harry?" I look up from the ashes of the letter to the face of Kingsley. He's standing in the door way of my office, looking very much the part of a solemn obelisk. He nods curtly and gives me the 'we-need-to-talk' look. Merlin, I know that look inside, out, and backwards from the amount of times I've been given it this year.

I stand and I follow.

I already know what he's going to say. He's going to try and hide me away from the limelight. He's going to try and give me low-profile cases, the Auror equivalent of getting cats out of trees. I hate him for it, but I understand. I think that's the worst part, knowing if I were in his place, I'd do the exact same thing. I don't even have the illusion that I would be a better person and stick by and try to solve the problem to fuel my resentment. Part of me wants to just submit to the changes, but the larger part wants to be out there, bringing in rogue Death Eaters and murderers and dark wizards. I want to make a difference. It's the only thing I have now.

When we reach his office he closes the door and raises a Silencing charm. Kingsley motions for me to sit and I take the chair opposite his. My eyes lock into dead space; I offer him one flick of my eyes when he begins speaking to me. He tells me everything I expected to hear. "Harry, those Aurors who were attacked by Fenrir Greyback and the other werewolves are making quick recoveries. We were lucky; they weren't in their transformed stages, so they might only suffer some minor drawbacks to their everyday life. We have the best at St Mungos working on an aconite anti-venom, which should be able to diminish the effects almost entirely as long as it gets administered before the full moon. Greyback is in custody and set up for a trial come March."

Again, my eyes flick to Kingsley's sobering face, there's a '_but'_ somewhere in that sentence. I choose to provoke it, bring it out of hiding. "But..."

"But, the Ministry can't condone the manner to which you brought him into custody." Godric, I could feel a callous laugh just beneath the surface rising up in my throat. Only my sense of propriety around the Head Auror keeps it in check. Kingsley hadn't been complaining when I brought Greyback in three nights ago. "The use of silver was unnecessary. You had him in a full body bind!"

"Bullshit," I spit, my mind only catching up with my mouth a few seconds later. Maybe last year Kingsley would have been surprised by the outburst, now he just gives me one of those sharpened looks that tell me I'm out of place. "The only reason he didn't break the full body bind is because the silver was weakening him."

I know Kingsley knows I'm right. But he won't admit it, not if he has the Ministry breathing down his back like I suspect he does. He fights me on it. "You could have knocked him unconscious."

"He looked pretty unconscious when we got him out of that thing." This time, my mind and my mouth are on the same wavelength. I feel a few notches short of apoplectic. I've never really been that good at hiding anger, even as a teenager. "Greyback was about to attack children. _Muggle_ children. I don't see the issue here. He's a monster, those children were innocent and on top of that, attacking them could have exposed the werewolf conditions to muggles had he chosen to keep them alive." I regret nothing, and admit it had been gratifying in a sick sort of way. Instant justice for the wounds he had inflicted onto truly _good people._ Not the half-punishment he'll get for a trial still a month and a half away.

He sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, head bowed. I know that look, too. It's a look of exhaustion, of being tired of fighting up a rocky slope, of frustration and internal conflict. He knows I'm right, but his job title doesn't let him admit it.

Kingsley lays his hands flat on the desk; it seems his moment retreating into himself is finished. "Regardless, Harry, it was outside of protocol and an inhuman treatment to one of those who falls under the jurisdiction outside of our own Auror office." I try not to remind him that it seems somewhat just that Greyback, a creature with no humanity, gets inhuman treatment. He keeps going, trying to look me in the eye. I rise to the challenge accordingly and I wouldn't have been surprised if the tension between the green and brown eyes meeting became palpable enough to cut at that point. "This means I will have to suspend you from fieldwork indefinitely. If I can't trust you to act with the knowledge that what you do individually affects this branch as a whole, I can't have you out there representing the Auror office. Yes, you get results, Harry. But we can't become what we hunt; we can't sink to that level."

The tone of finality stops me from rebuking. It doesn't stop the blazing anger in me, though, raging and demanding a fairer trial. See what the other Aurors had to say; surely they'd want me out there beside them? I feel myself gripping the arm chair so heavily my knuckles are losing color. Releasing the chair, I realize that Kingsley is still talking.

He's telling me one thing I didn't expect. I'm being put on a murder case. It's an unusual request from someone who wants to keep me away from prying eyes. Murders always have a way of going public. It soon becomes clear why they want this under wrap, the victim is a ministry official by the name of Devotcha, Michael Devotcha, who works...or rather _worked_ indirectly for the Ministry. He owns an apothecary that sells rare ingredients to our potion masters. He also supplies to St Mungos and to a few select individuals in the public too, or so the rumours around the Aurors go.

I heard he also supplied elements to create more lethal concoctions to the Death Eaters during the war but was pardoned. It seems the Ministry couldn't lose their cheap supplier of the rare ingredients. So, instead of finding a new, more expensive source to buy from, they let him go. After all, what could harm could he be? He didn't have a snake and skull on his arms. He won't be identifiable to public as someone obliquely responsible for the pain they suffered.

Somewhere in my gut I feel he is…or _was_ crooked. I know almost on the spot that I'll find things I won't like about him but will be asked to keep them away from public eyes.

We're so goddamned seedy sometimes, it's hard to tell where one ugly plant stops and another begins.

With a wave of his wand, Kingsley summons a fair sized box along with a thick folder. I rise from my seat and gather them in my arms. I feel the load weigh down when the Head Auror drops the levitation charm. "The body can be found in our morgue, but there are the personal items we found in the immediate vicinity of Mister Devotcha, photographs of the scene of death and the initial report done by the Magical Law Enforcers. If you need anything else, our resources are free to use."

I nod stiffly and take the box back to my office and dive in. Work like this is better than nothing at all. At least this way I can pretend I'm making a difference. I set everything down into neat piles, report on one end, and personal affects like clothing on the other. I know it won't stay that way for long. I'm like a whirlwind when I work, nothing stays in one place for long; I work better in this chaos, neat and orderly never seemed to do it for me. The pictures from the murder scene are strewn across my paper, right now they're the most important thing to me. I couldn't see the crime scene; I have to make do with these.

In the first picture there's Devotcha's naked body laid across the floor, face down in his personal apothecary. His head is craned unnaturally upwards to the left. Broken neck, I assume. He looks brutal and I haven't even examined the close-ups yet. With the picture in one hand, I grab the initial report of the murder scene in the other. The estimated time of death was around ten. It's a bit early for a murder. Even in winter when the darkness swallows the sun by six, it still leaves a lot to chance.

"Murderer had to have had time to inflict this kind of damage onto the body. This was not a quick attack. It's probable that the murderer knew Devotcha or knew his schedule well enough to know when he could allot enough time." The charmed quill at my side is running hurriedly across a scrap of parchment. I'll transfer the notes to something more substantial later, but for now, I'll put my notes wherever I can fit them.

I snatch one of the close ups from the pile, this one is of his back, though there are others of his arms, face, and legs. I furrow my brow and bring the picture closer to my face as if that would bring better detail to the photograph. The wounds seem to be puncture marks; the largest is smaller than the size of a knut, all of them are surrounded by the fading marks of blood pooled beneath the wound and heavy splotch of greens and dark purples. There's no weapon that I can think of, nor spell I can recall off the top of my head that would produce this effect on a body. The other pictures are more of the same. Whatever did this to Devotcha did it on every section of his body. He looks punctured and savaged, his skin tinted with the ghoulish suggestion of a leopard.

In another photograph it shows a thick line of blood drawn continuously over the floor. "The victim appears to have been dragged across the room. Assailant has to be strong enough to continuously move the victim; there is no mark of stalled motion in the blood." The blood starts from the foot of a cauldron (circling the cauldron's feet is a heavy ring of crimson, it looks as if the body was drained there, then dragged) and leads to Devotcha centered on the floor.

I make a note to myself to visit the room; the angle of the head could be intentional. Devotcha, even in death, could be watching something. I have a feeling that whoever took the time to drain and position the body, nigh spread eagle, on the floor of his study would not have left the head to loll at random.

I'm dragging my teeth over my bottom lip, sucking occasionally. The gears in my mind moving a mile a minute, I've got too many questions and not enough answers. My forte was always being in the throes of the action, the fire of adrenaline licking at my body. Investigation, however, I tried to leave to those far better suited than I.

I leaf through the last few pictures of the scene. Every last inch of the home apothecary was photographed and documented. I find it strange that blood was found nowhere else in the room. There was no evidence of spattering, just the intentional red line in an otherwise spotless room. It looks like the floor itself is gouged by some ethereal weapon, a mythic blade drawing blood from stone.

Sighing darkly, I trade off the photographs for the preliminary report of the crime scene to familiarize myself with it. It doesn't make any more sense of the scene than I have, only drawing point to the same empty facts. Facts that mean nothing without being part of the whole picture, a picture that I'm meant to paint in earnest and in truth.

Everyone is expecting a pretty, simplistic picture. Victim, motive, murderer. Most of them don't know that even the most elementary of pictures are composed of layers and everything is deeper than what the mind first absorbs.

If I am to serve as the artist, replicating the case in a manner which all can see and understand, I have to gather appropriately. If the facts are to be the colors with which I construct this ghastly art, it is time I fill my palette.


	3. Intent Upon Beholding

**Chapter Two: Intent Upon Beholding**

There had been questions that the pictures of Michael Devotcha couldn't answer. Questions that only the morgue could answer. I leave the photographs of Michael Devotcha on my desk, but take the initial report with me. It is a snake of a path to the morgue. I wind through corridors marked with heavy black tiles, and grout even darker. Torches flicker and dance as I pass by them but never extinguish.

The morgue is hidden behind hefty walnut doors. I shoulder my way in, my hands full of the report I had been leafing through for what must be the seventeenth time this evening. From what I've been able to glean from the report, I don't like the feel of this murder. It feels incomplete; it feels like there are pieces missing. I hope for the best, but my gut tells me it's not finished. Over the years, I've learned to trust my instincts. After all, it's saved my life more times than I can count.

The scrape of the door and the wheezing of joints announce my presence, I feel a shiver run down my spine. The temperature just dropped drastically. I look up from the case file and find the familiar face of our pathologist, Tasmin Applebee, staring back at me elbows deep in Michael Devotcha. The fact that the cadaver is open and being dissected doesn't faze me like it used to, it's just something you get familiar with. Even the smell of the dead that stains the room you can grow accustomed to with enough practice, or so Tasmin tells me.

Tasmin is a streaky golden haired woman with enough freckles to invoke the Zebra dilemma. You could never really tell if she was of a fair nature with dark spots or of a dark nature with white flecks on her skin. Her wide puppy dog eyes, the most prominent feature in all of her willowy build, were appraising me as I closed the door to the morgue behind me. She gives me a smile and retracts her gloved hands from inside the body. The lurch I expect my stomach to do at the sight of it never happens.

"Good evenin', Harry."

Good evening? What's so good about it? I bite my tongue to keep myself from taking out left over frustrations on the wrong person. The last thing I need is to get tossed out of the morgue by an angry pathologist—maybe it's just me, but pissing off a woman who spends her life cutting up others never seemed like a particularly brilliant idea. "Got anything interesting yet?"

"Ah, straight to business then, not really sure why I expected otherwise, it's not as if you're much of a tea-and-crumpets-in-the-sound-atmosphere-of-death-and-foul-play kind of bloke." She gives me a wink; I really don't think people who only seconds prior had their hands moving around in corpses should be as good humored as she is. She must have noted my lack of a smile and she's suddenly as professional as I'm trying to be. "I just finished looking over and categorizing the surface wounds, from what I can tell, most of them are insect stings."

"Only most?"

"Yeah, there are no surface wounds which would attribute to the cause of death, and the only other lacerations on the body were caused postmortem, by an intricately wielded cutting charm."

"What other lacerations?" The report never mentioned anything other than the suspicious injuries that had been found all over the body. One would assume that anything less than congenial found on the body would be right at the top of the report in big, bold letters.

"Er, give me a minute will you and I'll show you." I expect her to bring out photographs I assume she must have taken before my arrival, but with a quick spell Tasmin stitches the body up just enough to keep the open flaps of the chest together. She steps off of the step ladder she was on while hunched over the corpse. "They weren't part of the initial report because Devotcha was found on his stomach. It seems weird to me to cut into a body then cover up the message."

Tasmin beckons me forward to her side and for the first time I am seeing the front of Michael Devotcha. The white sheet is bundled around his waist; the edges of it flecked crimson with her finger tips. His chest is almost as pale as the sheet draped over him. Like the rest of his body, it's marbled with dark patches, however, there are several clean cutes together assembling a message:

_**Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,  
Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.**_

I test the words on my lips silently. They're foreign to me. My eyes search out Tasmin, she shrugs beneath the question in my gaze. She doesn't recognize the quote anymore than I do. Now more than ever I have that too-familiar lurching feeling in behind my navel that screams this is only the beginning.

Tasmin takes my silence as her permission to begin. "The wounds in the chest were cut post-mortem; I doubt they even bled seeing as the skin around the lacerations was clean when he was brought to me. As it is, it makes sense no blood would be present as the body was drained previous to the carving." Tasmin bobs her head as she speaks and she's barely coming up to my shoulder. Her expression is less than pleased at the admission, her eyebrows knitted in perplexity. I'm glad in some small measure I'm not the only one who doesn't understand the purpose behind all this. "The numerous surface wounds were the cause of death. They're wasp stings, Devotcha was allergic."

I nod, though it's barely a movement of the head. Another confirmation the murderer needed time. This was torture. "How was the blood drained out of the body?"

The blond points to a series of sliver cuts on several main veins: one on the jugular, each wrist and just shy of each Achilles tendon. They're barely thicker than a paper cut but upon examination, they're at least an inch deep.

"The neck was also broken post-mortem."

I try to smile in thanks of the information, but I feel like I'm grimacing. It's not often I see murders quite this brutal, certainly the Dark Arts get creative but this was not a single curse. This was planned and orchestrated by a human mind. The thought doesn't unsettle me as much as it should. I'm not even as surprised at the cruelty. I feel anger in me rear its ugly head again. I should be on the forefront trying to catch the sadistic bastard, not in the shadows with their handiwork. I'm doing the grunt and when I finally do have suspects, I won't even be allowed to confront them. I grind my teeth at the thought.

I look from the cadaver to Tasmin, "Time of death?"

"Twenty passed ten; I've also checked for magical residue, there's nothing on the body strong enough to get a reading from, the cutting charm used on the chest might as well been made by a knife for the amount of magical signature left in them. Also, there are no defence wounds or anything under the fingernails."

I frown. That narrows a lot of options, moving forward just became a lot more difficult. We have no signature to check against—which would be good as any finger print, and no DNA that could possibly be from the assailant. Sometimes, for all the progress that the marriage of muggle technology and magic has made in the Auror Department, it's still bloody useless.

I'm pacing lengths around the body, looking for anything. Head to foot, around, foot to head and repeating again. I notice something on the fifth interval. "The marbling of the bruises is different, the shades aren't the same."

"The bites are few hours apart; I'm guessing, longer time frame, but fewer insects needed. Has anyone checked the time Devotcha was last seen?" Tasmin sounds utterly disgusted. The irony of this seems to escape her though. She does just as much desecration to a body, but it doesn't seem to bother her as the body can no longer protest.

I shake my head and add it to my list of things to do. "Can I get the report?"

"Might take about an hour, but I'll get it to you, Harry." Tasmin promises me and her face breaks into a smile again, though there's a determination behind her eyes that makes me believe the report will take not a second longer than that goal she's placed for herself now.

I nod and leave quickly, letting the diminutive pathologist get her hands back into her work. Probably literally. The dark hallway is moving around me, I try to walk as quickly as possible from the morgue. I don't like being in a room with dead bodies, I've decided. Just as I decided the last time I was in the morgue and the time before that. I always feel so damned cold afterwards.

**

I step out of a pinched fireplace, grinning mirthlessly at the thought of trying to get all the necessary crew and equipment to and from the Ministry. I suppose the idea of rebelling always lightens my mood. I know technically, I'm not supposed to be entering Devotcha's house. But technically, I don't give a fuck. If Kingsley expects me to solve the murder case to keep me away from any sort of field work, than I can at least have the precedence to enter the scene of the crime and experience it firsthand.

When I arrive there are still wards up around the house preventing access by normal citizens, even wards that sever the floo connection from the rest of the house. A hole opens in the wards and swallows me into the treasure in its stomach. I can tell which room is the one I want by the amount of equipment still left outside the door by Magical Law Enforcement.

I use a wand to allow myself into the home-based apothecary. I don't want my prints being mixed in with evidence. The room is dark, but far from dingy. The stone floor I recognize and the pool of blood remains like a frozen, crimson lake. I step along the streak of red across the floor trying to position myself over where the body lay. I can picture Devotcha underneath me, his head sickeningly craned. Crouching, I get down near to the floor and look in the direction the body had been forced, in death, to gaze ceaselessly.

I'm staring at one of his many shelves. Each shelf is littered with jars with things floating in them. I couldn't even name half of what were in the containers, but I could tell you a good portion of them were, without a shadow of a doubt, illegal. On the bottommost rung, a small flash of red catches my eye. Wand out, the thing gives a few feeble flutters in restraint until flittering over to my hand. I turn the long strip of fabric over in my hand. The most I can make of it is the fact it's a flag. With a quick flick of my wrist its hovering back in the air and my wand is going over it as I mutter several different diagnostic spells. Blood would have highlighted itself in blue – there was none; organic matter would have glowed a toxic green – again, nothing; a third spell tells me that the fabric was conjured, the fact that it was created magically will give me a reference point if I find anything else conjured.

I spend about forty five minutes searching the apothecary, taking particular interest in the cabinets; most of what's kept in there are potion ingredients, a few of them have names attached to the top. I flip through a few of the names, none of them ring any bells, but if they're customers it might do me good to take a better look at them later. Taking the stack from the drawers, it's almost as thick as two hand widths, taking them mean I won't be able to do any more in the house. Looking around, I concede that I had searched the place from almost top to bottom without any more success anyhow.

With the papers I had found in Devotcha's place, I floo back to the Ministry. By now, it's going on eight and my stomach rumbles treacherously. For a moment, I debate giving into my stomach and calling it a night. I find on some level I can't allow myself even that much.

Collapsing into my office chair, I read through the top few sheets of paper. There's a beautifying potion with the name Abberley scribbled across the corner, something called a 'Sponge Solution' intended for a Branstone and a love potion for a Copplestone. I wrinkle my nose, so Devotcha _was_ peddling illegal potions on the side of working for the Ministry.

I flip through the other pages taking note of more and more illegal potions until one particular name pops out at me: Malfoy. There are a few papers addressed under the name and I remove them all, setting them aside to my right. It seems foolish that after all this time I automatically suspect anyone of the Malfoy blood, but it's hard not to grow suspicious when a former Death Eater family puts in orders with someone who used to supply potions and poisons to said Death Eaters.

I read through the four pages all marked 'Malfoy'. The first one has a date of just over a week and a half ago. I would like to have suspected Lucius or his son in a heartbeat, but solid fact keeps me from making the accusation. Lucius was kissed six months ago and Draco in Azkaban with no connection to the outside world. That left only Narcissa to place the order.

I read over the list of ingredients once more; even as an Auror now my knowledge of potions is shit. Of course, it's my luck that these are some of the only pages in the entire stacked that aren't labelled. Perhaps Narcissa requested everything be hushed up, suspicious that someone would come across these papers the same way I had? Or maybe Devotcha didn't know what he was brewing. Either way, it was worth looking into.

I make a note on my desk to ask Hermione about the potion ingredients. I pause, sucking in my bottom lip. While I'm at it, write a reminder to ask her about the quote found on Devotcha's chest, too.

About to pack up and call it a night, a paper airplane flutters into my office followed by the origami equivalent of a large dirigible. The airplane unfolds itself delicately and floats down to my desk. Feminine curls cross the't's and little smiling faces dot the 'i's. Even with her writing, Tasmin is far too upbeat for a pathologist.

'_Here's the official pathology report, Harry. Sorry it took me longer than I thought it would, just finished sewing the guy back up, you know. Anyways, I figured you probably wouldn't get around to getting that list of people who last saw Devotcha, so I asked Seamus to research it for you when he came in. I've included it in my report, it's just a preliminary list though, mostly from neighbours and owls we confiscated from his house earlier, so there may be some people we overlooked. Either way, good luck with the case and hope I don't see you soon!_

_T.A__' _

My fingers are itching and I snatch the report as it deflates and unfolds itself from zeppelin proportions. The name highlighted at the very bottom has the notation of 'lives across the street' by the name. I promise myself I'll go interview them tomorrow. Right now, I'm looking for a specific name. Half way down the page I'm smiling, the name I'm looking for pops off the page almost begging for me to find it: N. Malfoy.

I shake my head. I'm letting old grudges get the better of me. I shouldn't even be suspicious of Narcissa; she saved my life, after all. When it came down to it, there were hundreds of reasons she could have contact with Devotcha; she could have been owling Devotcha to see if her order was near completion, and without the title over the pages, for all I know they could be perfectly legitimate potions.

Somehow, I don't believe it, though.

Before I can throw myself into further investigation, pulling out Malfoy files from my desk, two more names grab my attention. The first is Nott, another former Death Eater; the second isn't really a name at all but a letter. L. I begin raking my mind going through free dark wizards with that initial. Before I can get any further my stomach gives another rebellious growl, louder this time. I couldn't ignore it if I tried.

Sighing with exasperation, I concede and agree with my stomach. Maybe I should call it a night. Tidying up (which consists of throwing things in the correct piles but not organizing or straightening them) takes only a moment, and it takes even less time for me to grab my wand and high tail it to the apparition zone, heading back to a frozen dinner that is calling my name.


End file.
